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If you opened up every single potential drilling opportunity in the United States, it would have the effect of lowering gas prices three cents, maybe. And that's because, of course, oil is traded on a global market.

People understand we have a dependence upon foreign oil. What they do not understand and find incredibly ridiculous is that we import refined product just making us more dependent on the industry.

In 1973, America imported 30 percent of its crude oil needs. Today, that number has doubled to more than 60 percent. Gas prices are as high as they are now in part because we've had no comprehensive national energy policy for the past few decades.

Certainly, we are hurt by the high fuel prices because it raises our cost.

The reality is gas prices should be much more expensive then they are because we're not incorporating the true damage to the environment and the hidden costs of mining oil and transporting it to the U.S. Whenever you have an unpriced externality, you have a bit of a market failure, to the degree that eternality remains unpriced.

By reducing our dependence of foreign oil and increasing alternative energy sources such as ethanol, we can begin to bring down prices at the pumps, create thousands of new jobs and bring a much needed boost to our economy.

Energy companies, such as Chevron and Shell, and oil producing countries, such as Kuwait and Venezuela, pump crude oil from their vast land holdings and sell it on the world market.

Simply raising fuel economy standards for passenger cars and light trucks to 33 miles per gallon would eliminate our oil imports from the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. uses most of its oil for transportation. We can limit U.S. demand for oil by requiring automakers to use the technology that already exists to improve fuel economy - technology that the automakers refuse to bring into the market despite societal demand.

Public-policy-wise, if you want to be consistent, crude oil is a bulk commodity, and you should be able to export it. I would rather the crude go to U.S. refineries to get refined and then export the refined product because we get double, triple the money.